Morning Rising

Copyright 2011, Samantha Boyette
Self publishing, Smashwords Edition
www.SamanthaBoyette.com
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Chapter 1

Kara sat with her back pressed to the cold,
stone wall of the alley. The bright afternoon sun brought little
relief from the icy breaths of wind that slipped over her. Cold bit
through the thin fabric of her shirt. She welcomed the distraction,
welcomed anything to take her mind off what just happened.

It was a wasted effort. Warm tears rolled
down her cold cheeks. At the moment, she didn’t have the energy to
wipe them away. She didn’t have the energy for much of
anything.

Every time her mom’s boyfriend got out of
jail, things were the same. He’d show up on their doorstep and no
matter how much Kara begged her mom wouldn’t send him away. When he
was in jail, her mom promised he wasn’t coming back. When he was
out, she had a million excuses for him. He always promised that he
was a changed man, but Kara knew he would never change.

Kara wiped the tears from her right eye. She
was careful to brush her cheek bone gently, but hissed in pain
anyway. It wasn’t broken, but a bruise was forming. Just one more
bruise to explain away at school. Not that many of the teachers
bothered asking anymore. Kara didn’t blame them, they had heard
enough lies. Back up in the apartment her mom’s boyfriend would be
bitching about what a waste of space Kara was, probably calling her
an unappreciative little shit. She should have given him the damn
remote when he asked for it.

“You look like shit.” The voice behind the
harsh words was as beautiful as it was unexpected. Kara quickly
wiped away the rest of her tears with the back of her hand. She
looked up at the girl.

The girl was stunning. Dark hair hung in
waves down her back and too much makeup lined her eyes. People said
Kara was skinny, but this girl made her look obese. Below her
threadbare sweater a pair of ripped jeans hung low on her bony
hips. A good two inches of her flat, tan stomach was left exposed.
Her thin fingers curled protectively around a cigarette.

When Kara’s eyes returned to the girl’s face,
the girl smiled. “Want to take a picture?” she teased, raising an
eyebrow. Her eyes never left Kara’s.

“Sorry,” Kara said. She shoved herself up,
her back scraping against the wall. Her face flushed. The girl
probably thought she was crazy. Had she really just stared at her
for that long? She adjusted her hooded sweatshirt, tugging it down
to cover her pale stomach.

Kara pushed her blond hair behind one ear,
wishing she had taken the time to brush it before the incident with
the remote. Beside the girl, Kara felt like a slob with her messy
hair, jeans, school sweatshirt, and scuffed sneakers. The black eye
completed the look.

Kara tugged her sleeves over her cold
fingers. She faced the girl and watched as she took a long drag
from her cigarette, studying Kara. Kara looked down, fidgeting
uneasily under her gaze. Half of her wanted to bolt from the alley.
The other half was too intrigued to move. All of her was
scared.

“It’s cool.” The girl waved her fear away.
She looked down, and Kara let out a breath she didn’t know she was
holding. “I’m just fucking with you,” the girl said. She looked
back up with a small smile. “So, are you alright? ‘Cause like I
said, you look like shit.”
“I’m fine,” Kara said. The girl tilted her head and raised an
eyebrow. It was clear she didn’t believe Kara. “My mom’s boyfriend
is a real asshole,” Kara added with a small grin. She looked down,
hoping her hair would cover the bruise.

“He do this?” the girl stepped forward,
unexpectedly close to Kara. She cupped Kara’s face in her free hand
and ran her cold thumb tenderly over the still forming bruise. Kara
winced, both from the pain and from embarrassment. The girl’s hand
was soft, it smelled like cigarettes and bubblegum.

“Yeah, he did,” Kara admitted. Her face
warmed with embarrassment. She wasn’t sure why she told the truth;
usually she would have lied. Something about the girl was making
her feel safe, if a little on edge.

“What a fucker.” The girl shook her head and
let her hand fall as she stepped back. Kara blinked, realizing she
missed the contact. The girl dropped her spent cigarette to the
ground. She pulled the pack out of her back pocket and shook
another cigarette free. “Want one?” she offered, after lighting her
own.

“No,” Kara answered out of habit. She never
smoked, but then she shook her head. “Actually, yeah I’ll have
one.” Habit wasn’t getting her all that far in life anyway. “My
name’s Kara Hart, by the way.”

“Oh yeah? Last names and everything, huh?”
the girl teased with a smile that showed perfect teeth. “In that
case, I’m Dylan Perry.” She handed Kara a cigarette and stepped
forward to light it for her.

Kara inhaled to light the cigarette, hoping
she didn’t look stupid. The smoke burned into her lungs, but she
managed to keep from coughing as she blew it out. Dylan slipped the
lighter back into her pocket. A small smile formed on her lips
before she began to laugh under her breath.

“What?” Kara grinned, she couldn’t help it.
The girl’s laugh was contagious.

“Nothing,” Dylan said. She shook her head as
she studied the sidewalk with an amused grin.

“What were you thinking?” Kara prodded with a
laugh. She nudged Dylan with her hip before she could stop herself.
Dylan laughed louder.

“It’s just,” Dylan said, bringing her eyes up
to meet Kara’s again. She wasn’t laughing anymore, but her eyes
sparkled. Kara swallowed, feeling trapped in Dylan’s gaze as she
continued speaking. “I was just thinking, they say you become fifty
times more attractive to someone when you light their
cigarette.”

*

Kara’s eyes snapped open. Her body ached;
each muscle cramped and sore. The smell of death and mold filled
the air around her. Minute by minute, a dank chill worked its way
deep into her bones. The earth was damp and cold under Kara; she
could feel it through her clothes. Wet mud stuck to her face. With
painful slowness, Kara lifted her head and tried in vain to clean
away the mud that caked her features. Wiping at her face, she
realized her hands were already covered in mud and gave up. Kara’s
thoughts jumped to Dylan. She looked around in the dim light for
any sign of the other girl. Nothing moved.

From far above, a thin shaft of faint light
made its way down to Kara. The light illuminated a small circle
around her before total darkness took over. Kara couldn’t remember
how she ended up in the pit or where it was. The memory of meeting
Dylan so many months ago flitted through Kara’s head again. Her
heart pounded at the thought of Dylan, wondering if she was okay.
Kara shook her head, wondering why was she was so concerned about a
girl she barely knew. She remembered meeting the girl, but nothing
more.

“She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?” the voice
was small and high pitched. Kara stepped back from the direction it
came from. Her senses strained into the darkness as she tried to
spot the speaker. The complete blackness made her body tense with
fear at each small sound. Every noise sounded at once to be close
and far away.

“Very pretty indeed,” it was a different
voice, a little deeper than the first. Kara stopped moving. The
words came from a different direction, directly behind her. She
spun to look in the direction of the voice, but found nothing.

“And she hears us too,” said the first voice.
“What can it mean? Have we a fairy child in our midst again? We
hasn’t had one in years.”

“Who are you?” Kara asked, turning to the
first voice again. The words came out shaky, but try as she might,
she couldn’t steady herself. Wart covered goblins, sneer-faced
leprechauns, and massive hairy spiders paraded through her head.
Any of those creatures or worse could have come out of the darkness
and she wouldn’t have been surprised.

“Oh ho, a fairy child indeed, but has no
ideas who we is? A changeling she is, I’d say,” the second voice
said. It was closer. Kara flinched and turned toward it. The pit
was silent. Water dripped in the distance, but Kara heard nothing
else. Her breath was ragged in her chest and seemed to be growing
in volume with her fear.

Kara wanted desperately to know what was out
there, but was just as afraid to see the creatures. She racked her
brain to remember how she ended up alone in the pit, but found no
answers. She didn’t remember anything after meeting Dylan, but in
her heart she knew that was months ago. Panic began to boil inside
Kara; she pushed it back down. There would be time later to wonder
why she lost her memory.

“Is she the fair-haired one?” the second
voice was still getting closer, but the answer came from right
behind her.

“One and the same.” Kara turned to see a
small creature squatting behind her. It stared up at her without
fear. Its wide eyes were milky-white and empty. It was like looking
into the eyes of a blind man.

Kara stood her ground as she studied the
thing, knowing full well it was studying her in return. Its skin
looked leathery tough, and its knobby limbs stuck out at rough
angles from its body. The creature’s arms were long, and it rested
on its curled fists the way an ape would. A pair of membrane
covered wings, a shade darker than the rest of the pale gray of the
thing’s body, stuck out from its shoulders. They didn’t look strong
enough to carry its weight. The creature’s mouth seemed to stretch
too far across its face, and its lips were turned upwards in an
easy smile to reveal sharply pointed teeth.

“She doesn’t know us.” The second voice was
close now; Kara wasn’t surprised to see the other creature
squatting to her right when she glanced that way. Except for being
a tad darker, it looked exactly the same as the first creature. Its
head tilted to stare up at her, white eyes just as disconcerting as
the other creature’s.

“You doesn’t?” the one directly in front of
her cocked its head at an unnatural angle, almost a complete ninety
degrees. It was the first time either creature spoke directly to
Kara, so she felt compelled to answer.

“No, I don’t know you.” Kara hugged herself,
trying vainly to warm her thin body. She wore only a t-shirt, and
her bare arms were covered in still drying mud. She swiped at a
stray piece of hair tickling her chin. “Who are you?”

“Aw, the Guardian has forgotten us,” sang the
one to the right. “Forgets old Glint and Collicks right quick she
does.”

“Who is who?” Kara asked flatly. She wasn’t
sure if she should be afraid of the things, but since they hadn’t
hurt her yet she was beginning to feel more confident. If this was
all only a game to them, she didn’t want to give them the upper
hand. She watched the one in front of her expectantly. Finally he,
because she had begun to think the creatures were male, turned his
head right way round again, nodding briefly.

“I is Glint,” he spoke, pointing to himself.
“He be Collicks. You be the Guardian of the Morning.” He pointed at
Kara.

“What?” Kara frowned. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about. I think you’ve got this all wrong, you should
really let me go.”

“She doesn’t know.” Collicks giggled madly.
“Lost the Morning to the Inbetween and she doesn’t even know.”

“We don’t keep you here,” Glint said as
Collicks lost himself to laughter. “Is only the master himself who
can keep you here.”

“Where is he then?” Kara asked, annoyed that
Collicks couldn’t seem to stop laughing.

“In his palace of course,” Glint answered
with a grin so wide it seemed his face would surely split in
half.

“Palace?” Kara shook her head. Her head swam
as she tried to force everything to make sense. “I want to see
him.”

Collicks stopped laughing abruptly. The smile
faded from Glint’s face just as quickly.

“See him?” Collicks asked stonily. “I think
not, I thinks you wants to go home, yes?”

“No, I want to see the asshole who threw me
down here.” Kara was surprised at the forcefulness of her voice; it
wasn’t like her. Again, her thoughts flicked to Dylan.

Kara clenched and unclenched her fists at her
sides, trying to calm herself. When it came down to it, she didn’t
know if these creatures were dangerous or not. She didn’t want to
risk upsetting them too much.